Blekko – The Grown Up Search Engine

There is a lot to like about Google, yet there is also a lot to dislike too. An inherent distrust of results on first glance is one of my personal pet peeves. One never know if the top site on Google contains a scholarly answer to your question or is simply the result of cleverly crafted SEO.

Blekko (link here) is an upstart engine that hopes to address some of those woes. Blekko, which is publicly available as of today, trolls three billion Web pages it deems worthy and shows the very best results on any given topic. These “curated” pages are known in Blekko-ese by the somewhat unfortunate name of “slashtags.”

Blekko’s creators know enough to weed out pages that are churned out by companies on topics the company deems popular by people who may not fit your particular definition of “scholarly.” Blekko also leverages vertical search engines on specific topics – a better way to gain depth in results.

It is also drawing on a fruitful category of Web search — vertical search engines that offer results on specific topics. Search within one of Blekko’s topics and you will see the benefits of weeded, reliable vertical search.

Tailor your search by identifying a single site and desired object, search by specific types of results or topics. Use the slashtag to segregate search commands such as “iphone/antenna” to narrow in on just the articles of interest. Use Blekko’s slashtags, create your own or edit existing tags to suit your needs. What about the spammers getting in and editing the slashtags? Blekko advises that it will police its own processes, Wikipedia-style, as it is committed to staying true to its course.

A different angle on search is a good thing. Hope Blekko is onto something here.